the Great Tanking Debacle<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn the last eight days, we\u2019ve had Spurs vs. Pistons, Knicks vs. Cavs, Pistons vs. Thunder, Celtics vs. Nuggets, Cavs vs. Pistons, Nuggets vs. Thunder, Spurs vs. Knicks and Wolves vs. Nuggets.<\/p>\n
And it continues tonight with a Cavs-Pistons rematch, Wednesday with Knicks-Thunder, Thursday with a Spurs-Pistons rematch, Friday with Knicks-Nuggets. Get yer popcorn.<\/p>\n
So, having checked in on these teams in person my travels last week \u2026 how do things stand right now?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start by saying I don\u2019t want to overreact to one single game on this journey. The Spurs, for example, looked great when I saw them in Detroit and not so good in New York on Sunday, while the Knicks (who I saw in a blah loss to Cleveland) were the opposite.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s especially true as injuries will continue to define the second half of the season. The Nuggets still miss Aaron Gordon, the Thunder have been hemorrhaging guards, and a potential Jayson Tatum return hangs over the Celtics\u2019 playoff picture.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, I would broadly tier out the championship picture something like this:<\/p>\n
Tier 1: The Thunder<\/p>\n
Look, as much as we want to talk about the race being wide open, a fully loaded Thunder team is still going to be awfully tough to beat. I get that both Denver and Indiana showed some of their weaknesses in a playoff environment, that they haven\u2019t been able to keep Jalen Williams healthy and that teams may have figured out some ways to attack their handsy, helping defense and beat them from the 3-point line.<\/p>\n
That said, they began the year 24-1, are still on track for one of the best scoring margins in league annals and are considered vulnerable largely because of a stretch where they\u2019ve \u201conly\u201d gone 23-14 with half their team injured. Watching a subset of the Thunder still make Detroit sweat for three and a half quarters last week was a good reminder of how many different options and styles this team can turn to in a playoff series.<\/p>\n
Tier 2: The Unproven \u2014 San Antonio, Detroit<\/p>\n
Nobody seems to believe in Detroit in the postseason yet, which is partly a result of the Pistons not having won a playoff series since (checks notes) \u2026 (blinks and checks notes a second time) \u2026 2008, and partly a result of legitimate questions about their iffy perimeter shooting.<\/p>\n
That said, Detroit is in a pretty powerful position historically; the Pistons certainly will be the conference\u2019s top seed, they have the best scoring margin in the East and their starting five (plus-13.7 points per 100) is rolling people.<\/p>\n
Similarly, San Antonio will go into the postseason as a second seed despite multiple injuries that have made continuity difficult (no five-man lineup has played more than 17 games, and the only one that has played 17 features four bench players) while bringing along younger players like Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant.<\/p>\n
The Spurs also have won four of their five meetings against Oklahoma City, an important consideration in a conference where going through the Thunder seems mandatory, Remember that block by Wembanyama? Oklahoma City\u2019s dribble-driving, attacking game is perhaps not optimally suited to go against that.<\/p>\n
That said, the Spurs \u2014 like Detroit \u2014 have never done it in April and May. Wembanyama is likely to face unprecedented physicality in the postseason, and perhaps some novel schemes as well. How he responds will be one of the thrills of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Tier 3: The Past Champions \u2014 Boston, Denver<\/p>\n
Boston has been shockingly successful in Tatum\u2019s absence, and now may have him back for the end of the regular season and a playoff run. The Celtics, even without him, are pushing Detroit for the conference\u2019s top scoring margin. They\u2019ve been good enough, in fact, that there is some concern that reincorporating Tatum\u2019s high-usage, dribble-heavy style might have the plot twist of messing them up. The Celtics also play the league\u2019s slowest pace, and we\u2019ve all seen them get stuck in the playoff mud hunting the perfect six-pass sequence for a 3-point shot.<\/p>\n
The Nuggets have the league\u2019s best offense and quite possibly its best player, but it\u2019s hard to imagine Denver\u2019s defense keeping up with good teams unless Gordon is back in the mix; the Nuggets were 21st on that side of the ball as of Monday, with Gordon having played only 20 games. On the other hand, they took the Thunder to seven games a year ago despite similar regular-season defensive woes, they have much more reliable depth than a year ago and the full-strength starting five remains fearsome.<\/p>\n
Tier 4: The Dangerous \u2014 Cleveland, Minnesota, New York<\/p>\n
Minnesota and New York went to the conference finals last year and Cleveland won 64 games. The Cavs just increased their playoff upside by turning Darius Garland into James Harden, the Knicks have won 14 of 18 and just routed San Antonio on Sunday, and Minnesota has won 11 of 15 while shoring up a gaping hole on the bench with the addition of Ayo Dosunmu.<\/p>\n
Cleveland or New York could win the East, although both profile less as a title winner. New York\u2019s starting five hasn\u2019t been dominant and the back-end depth remains shaky. Meanwhile, Cleveland might be the East\u2019s best team on paper, but the Cavs had trouble staying healthy. Moreover, of Cleveland\u2019s four stars, only Donovan Mitchell has a history of delivering at the same level in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Similarly, nobody would be shocked if Minnesota made a third straight visit to the conference finals. Going beyond that? Yep, that might still be a reach. Minnesota\u2019s playoff superpower has been that in a short-rotation series, its top eight is better than yours and can wear you out. That certainly bore out on my trip to Denver on Sunday, when the Wolves\u2019 bench unit pantsed the Nuggets\u2019 subs. But that hits its limits in later rounds when the Wolves are riding one offensive star against elite defenses.<\/p>\n
Tier 5: Everyone else<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll specifically note the Rockets and the Lakers here, since both teams have at least puncher\u2019s-chance odds of winning a round or two with their top-end talent. The Rockets would warrant a more serious mention here if Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams were on their active roster and their decision to punt on the trade deadline spoke volumes. The Lakers, meanwhile, still don\u2019t seem to have nearly enough defense or depth to back up their three electric stars.<\/p>\n
But enough about what I think. Let\u2019s also look at what history says.<\/p>\n
I bring that up because we have an important game-within-the-game this spring: The race to be taken seriously as a contender. The Pistons and Thunder have graduated from this as presumed top seeds in their conferences, while San Antonio seems highly likely to have the league\u2019s third-best record.<\/p>\n
For the others, it\u2019s more of a fight. The reason is that, historically, you want to be a top-three seed to win a championship. Only two teams seeded fourth or lower have won a title, and none in the last 29 years. Yes, Indiana came close last season (as did Boston in 2010), but the facts are the facts.<\/p>\n
Similarly, you want at least 52 wins. In the last 30 years, we\u2019ve had 29 teams who won 51 games or fewer but were still top-three seeds in their conference. (Hilariously, 24 of them were in the East and just five in the West.) Those 29 teams have combined to win zero championships and a total of two NBA Finals games \u2014 in 2003, when the Nets emerged as the champion of an Eastern Conference in which no team won 52 games. (They\u2019ve also accounted for a disproportionate number of early upsets \u2014 such as the Kings and Grizzlies in 2023 or the Bucks in 2024 \u2014 although that\u2019s beyond the scope of what we\u2019re analyzing here.)<\/p>\n
Look at the standings and the win totals, and you can see how these last few weeks can get interesting. In the East, the Knicks, Cavs and Celtics are in a tight race for the second, third and fourth seeds, with history saying the team that lands fourth has slim odds of winning a title. Similarly, the West has a chase for the third seed between the Wolves, Rockets and Nuggets that could go down to the last day of the season.<\/p>\n
Both those races also involve teams that may or may not hit our 52-win threshold. Particularly in the West, it\u2019s possible the winner of the Rockets-Nuggets-Wolves race still lands short of 52.<\/p>\n
Either way, however, my list of eight serious contenders above will find itself whittled down to six by the end of the regular season, and possibly five \u2014 or even four \u2014 if enough clubs fall short of 52 wins.<\/p>\n
Thus, with six weeks and 20-ish games to sort this out, it\u2019s a fun time to watch the NBA\u2019s Relatively Serious 10 (my own term, which I came up with after an extended brainstorming session while going through airport security) sort themselves out and prepare for the playoff crucible. And maybe, just maybe, it\u2019s enough fun to distract you from all the tanking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A LONELY STRETCH OF HIGHWAY IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION \u2014 I went to Detroit and Cleveland in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,1664,17603,1662,7214,7220,7232,5665,590,1666,5548,10549,85],"class_list":["post-516213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boston-celtics","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-houston-rockets","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}